Arcola theatre, London
Set in a chronically understaffed treatment centre, Laura Waldren’s searing play homes in on the hellish cycles and contradictions caused by the condition

For anyone who has ever lived with an eating disorder, Laura Waldren’s Papatango prize-winning play feels like a blow to the head. It is set in an adult eating disorder unit – a land segregated from the rest of life, where patients fight against their internal voices in an effort to get better. Their key nurses treat them like infants, telling them what to eat, when they can use the phone, and to avoid using “negative” words. But when you’re under the sway of a secret demon, can any of that really help at all?

Eighteen-year-old Sam (Hannah Saxby) arrives at the unit fresh from a stint at a similar children’s facility. She is desperate to get well enough to go to university and start anew. Zoe (Sirine Saba) is in her 40s, a cynical revolving-door patient who has so far been unable to escape the grasp of her illness. Group sessions, meal plans and physical check-ups form the basis of the broken, chronically understaffed system that they’re pushed through. Honesty is required for the process to work, they’re told repeatedly, but the lies about relapses and secret bouts of exercise fall out of the women with ease.

Tony Sinclair had worked all his life – but still found himself sleeping rough. Then even his tent was taken away from him

In a way, 70-year-old Tony Sinclair was lucky to be in his tent on the day last year when the police arrived. The canvas that kept him from the elements ended up in the bin, but, unlike several of his neighbours, he was able to save his most important possessions from going the same way.

On 10 November, he was in Huntley Street in central London, in one of 10 tents pitched in a row next to University College hospital. Officers turned up “demanding my details, name, date of birth. But I stood my ground and refused, because I’d done nothing wrong.” They said they were enforcing a section 35 dispersal order, under powers introduced 10 years ago to target antisocial behaviour. Sinclair thought such an order couldn’t be used to move someone away from their home – “and this was my home”.

Charities are calling for more help for women trapped with mortgages they cannot change because they are controlled by an abusive partner

A woman whose controlling partner’s abrupt departure left her with an unaffordable mortgage has accused Barclays of refusing to help her as she struggled with the fallout.

Sally James*, a mother of two teenage daughters, says the bank refused to restructure her repayments when she could no longer afford them after being left as a single parent. And when the ombudsman ordered Barclays to do so, it trashed her credit score.

While once there would be a lone photographer taking pictures of the happy couple, now videographers and ‘content creators’ are also invited to document the big day, and even the clergy have had enough

Hiking to the top of the highest local peak in full wedding dress sounded dramatic, adventurous and romantic. A visual representation of feeling on top of the world; a jaunty juxtaposition between gorgeous wedding finery and the wilds of northern England. The resulting photographs were striking and memorable, recalls the photographer behind this scenario, Scott Johnson. The couple were lovely and it was one of his favourite jobs – but he wonders how their guests felt, having been left for two hours while they went off to hike up a hill. “You’re invited by the bride and groom to spend a day with them and they disappear, so I can see where the angst comes from,” he says. “But it’s what the couple wants, so we have to say yes.”

Johnson, in his 40s, says he is old enough to remember when his wedding photography jobs lasted around three hours – he was there to capture the arrival at the church or register office, shoot the ceremony and take portraits and photographs for an hour or so afterwards. “You didn’t do any bridal preparation, or stay for the party.” Now, he says, couples want coverage from early in the morning until midnight or later. “I used to just take one camera and one lens,” he adds; now he brings a van of equipment. “Couples are much more aware of what can be done than ever before.” And, anecdotally at least, many couples want much more. “Some want the more stylised coverage,” he says. “You see wedding photography online where you’re thinking, that’s not a wedding, it’s like a movie shoot.”

BMA to lobby next government to change limit, which is one of the highest in Europe

Doctors have called for England’s drink-driving limit to be reduced to the equivalent of a small glass of wine or beer, in a proposal supported by a number of medical and road safety organisations.

England’s legal limit for getting safely behind the wheel is one of the highest in Europe at 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, a law established in 1967.

Shorter playtimes and shrinking outside space in England have serious implications for children’s wellbeing and mental health

• Revealed: students at top private schools have 10 times more green space than state pupils
• Indoors at breaktime: the school in a London office block
• Private schools in England should be made to share their green space, say campaigners

Children are facing a “brutal” loss of space and time for play in school, teachers, unions and academics have warned.

A combination of factors is eating into the time children spend outside, and will have serious implications for their wellbeing and mental health.

A Guardian analysis of the space available to state school children in England has revealed that thousands are attending schools with very little outside space, with government data showing that more than 300 schools have under 1,000 sq metres and at least 20 have no outside space. In nearly 1,000 schools, there is under 10 sq metres for each pupil.

New and unpublished research from the UCL Institute of Education seen by the Guardian showed a continued downward trend in the amount of time children have for playtime in the wake of the Covid lockdowns, with the youngest losing the most time.

The demands of the curriculum have increased, and continue to diminish time outside, while staffing shortages are reducing capacity to oversee playtime.

Across England and Wales schools face difficult financial decisions, which are having an impact on the funding to care for grounds. Headteachers in the state sector have said they are in desperate need of funding to improve basic facilities for children.

School buildings are crumbling, as many were built with Raac (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) that was not replaced within its usable lifetime, meaning in some cases playgrounds are being used to host temporary classrooms. This is squeezing out the little space some schools have for children to spend time outside.

Exclusive: Rishi Sunak’s team helped fast-track deal with firm founded by Charles Huang, who says contracts generated $2bn profit

In California, state of sunshine and palm trees, a small group of men are locked in a big legal fight over the money made by a US company selling Covid tests to the British government. The founder of Innova Medical Group says his business collected $2bn (£1.6bn) in profits, one of the largest fortunes banked by any medical supplier during the scramble for lifesaving equipment in the early months of the pandemic.

In a storm of claims and counter-claims, Innova’s boss, Charles Huang, is accused by former associates of “squandering” or moving $1bn of those profits, spending lavishly on luxury aircraft, an $18m house in Los Angeles and “homes for his mistresses”.

Faced with ‘bad’ emotions, it’s natural to want to lock them up. As a therapist and a patient, I’ve learned to let them run

Not so long ago, one of my best friends was sitting at my kitchen table, crying. He and his partner had just broken up, and I could feel his desperate sadness and the crushing weight of grief at losing someone he loved so much. I stood by the counter feeling so helpless. Confronted with his suffering, I was desperate to lift him out of his misery, to tell him that they would get back together, that things would be OK. It felt like an emotional emergency, and I wanted to call in the feelings police to lock his bad feelings up.

One of the hardest things for me to do, when I was training to be a psychotherapist, was to stop trying to make my patients feel better. It is of course a very natural response, if someone we are with is feeling bad, to want to make them feel good. We feel it in our bones – feeling bad is bad, feeling good is good, and we want only good things for those we care for. Emergency! Shut this thing down!

Lambeth council, which raised bills for more than 3,000 tenants on communal heat networks, has delayed crediting them for over a year

A local authority that threatened tenants with eviction if they could not afford a 350% hike in energy bills has delayed crediting them with a £1m government subsidy for more than 12 months, it has emerged.

Lambeth council is facing demands to pay compensation to residents who campaigners say have been forced into poverty by its conduct.

Campaigning door-to-door is nothing new, but selling your party’s vision in the UK election to someone when you can’t see them can be a mixed blessing

• UK general election live – latest updates

Since their debut just over a decade ago, smart doorbells have been a revelation for anyone interested in home security and, though most won’t admit it, being a bit nosey. They’ve also transformed door knocking for political canvassers.

While doorbell camera footage of passersby pilfering packages or behaving badly can be found all over the internet, spare a thought for those campaigning for the country’s future.

Manifesto has no pledge to end rule Angela Rayner called ‘inhumane’ but there have been hints at more to come

Senior Labour figures have been crystal clear in the past about the two-child benefit limit, with Angela Rayner saying it was “obscene and inhumane” and Jonathan Ashworth calling it “heinous”.

Yet, as expected, Keir Starmer’s safety-first manifesto lacked any promise to reverse it, and shadow ministers have been wheeled out to underline the need to make “tough choices” and avoid unfunded promises. Rayner has said Labour has to “prioritise”.

The actor argues that the law has changed elsewhere; now it’s time for the UK to show compassion

I’ve been campaigning and raising money for assisted dying for decades, but now we have an icon like Esther Rantzen talking about it, suddenly the game has changed. My mother died in 1964 and some time after that I decided to join the Euthanasia Society, which is now called Dignity in Dying. When I looked after my mother-in-law, she was begging to get off the planet but nobody would help her. After that there was my husband Eddie [Kulukundis, theatre and sports philanthropist] who had dementia. He was such a gentle man, a pleasure to look after for 14 years. But 18 months before he met his maker, he said in an aggressive way, which was quite unusual for Eddie, “I just want to die.”

I cared for my two sisters, both of whom lived well until they were 94. But the last five weeks of my sister Anne’s life was horrendous because of how much agony she was in. Every few minutes she was saying, “Please help me. Why can’t they help me to go now? I’m not going to get any better. I have no future. I will never move again. Please.”

University Hospitals Sussex admits errors, failures and surgeon disagreements in case of Ken Valder

A troubled NHS trust has apologised to the family of a man who died after a series of delays led to him waiting 254 days for surgery to remove a tumour in his oesophegus.

Before he died in November 2022, Ken Valder, 66, a former tax inspector and voluntary steward at Brighton & Hove Albion football club, complained of “delays after delay” to his treatment.

James Corden and Anna Maxwell Martin are starring in The Constituent, a play that asks if MPs are no longer safe. Here, its writer explores what politicians wearing stab vests means for democracy

Since the murders of Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox and Southend West MP Sir David Amess, we’ve seen a rising tide of viciousness aimed at locally elected politicians, by apparently fairly ordinary constituents. There are all manner of reasons, often surprisingly banal.

Female MPs are targeted for their gender. MPs from an ethnic minority background are disproportionately the target of racial or religious hatred. And some local MPs are targeted simply because they’re politicians, tasked with fixing problems they’re unable to fix. With a general election looming and MPs deciding which battles they can safely pick, there are fears the escalating hostility is a threat to democracy.

IFS research shows 670,000 more children will be hit by policy by end of next parliament if limit stays in place

Keir Starmer is facing renewed pressure to scrap the two-child benefit limit, as research reveals that 250,000 more children will be hit by the policy over the next year alone.

Labour’s manifesto for government, published last week, included the promise of an “ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty”, but no mention of the two-child limit.

PM says ‘I’m not against it in principle’ with issue expected to be subject of Commons vote in next parliament

Rishi Sunak has said he is not opposed to assisted dying in principle ahead of an expected vote on the issue in the next parliament.

Speaking to journalists in Puglia, the prime minister said he was not against changing the law on euthanasia.

Many students have to do 20-plus hours a week of paid work to get by, and grants would let them focus more on learning than surviving, says Wendy Sloane, while Prof Andy Long also calls for reform of financial support for undergraduates

I’ve taught in higher education since 2010 and have known few students who haven’t had to take on paid work, often 20 hours weekly or more in low-paid retail or hospitality jobs (More than half of UK students working long hours in paid jobs, 13 June).

The lack of maintenance grants for less well-off students affects their livelihoods and education. It requires almost superhuman planning and fortitude to ensure that working long hours does not encroach on university life. One student got out of bed every weekday at 4.30am to spend four hours before class opening up a Pret – he graduated with a first. Another worked as a pub manager, often closing after midnight, yet managed to regularly attend class on time.

Lonely people are more likely to get heart disease, strokes, anxiety, depression, dementia … Add it all up, and they’re 26% more likely to die early. How do you avoid joining the unhappy millions?

I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about a lonely old age. Closing in on my 61st birthday, eight years into a very happy marriage, I’ve got a wife, two teenage stepkids, an older daughter by an ex, a grandson and four siblings. Most of them at least tolerate me; a few even tell me that they love me. But maybe I’m taking too much for granted. People die, drift apart, fall out – and anyone who knows me will tell you that I can be very irritating.

Fifteen or 20 years from now it’s not inconceivable that none of my family will want to have much to do with me.

I’m furious that women still do more than their fair share of domestic chores. At least this might take my mind off it

The other night, I spent half an hour cleaning the mud kitchen of a city farm, surrounded by sand, goat hair and mulch. I have never cleaned the inside of my own oven. Yesterday, I lost a happy hour dusting all the shelves of my friend’s bookshop with a fluffy grey duster so extendable that at one point I started cleaning the rafters just because I could. I have never, to my knowledge, dusted any of my shelves. Last week, I happily washed about 40 wine glasses after a book event, noting the different shades of lipstick as I went. Washing up in my kitchen makes me want to punch a hole through the sink.

Cleaning anything that isn’t my own home feels less boring, less pointless, less like my soul is being leached into an abyss of dirty hobs and splattered toothpaste. Perhaps it’s because this kind of cleaning less pointedly marks out the continued gender inequality that lurks at the heart of most British households and was exacerbated by the pandemic. A report called How Are Mothers and Fathers Balancing Work and Family under Lockdown?, published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London in May 2020, found that, in the first months of the first UK lockdown, mothers were still doing disproportionately more housework and childcare than fathers. Even when both were in the house. Even if both were paid employees. Even if the mother was the primary earner.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Guardian investigation finds pupils at England’s wealthiest schools have much greater access to land, with implications for mental health

• Analysis: Green space better for young brains than we realised
• How England’s top private schools came to own 38,000 acres of land
• Beagling, golf and jolly hockey sticks: outdoor life at England’s largest private schools

Children at the top 250 English private schools have more than 10 times as much outdoor space as those who go to state schools, an exclusive Guardian analysis can reveal.

A schoolboy at fee-charging Eton has access to 140 times more green space than the average English state school pupil, the analysis found. Experts condemned the “staggering” and “gross” inequalities.

The average student at one of England’s top private schools has access to approximately 322 sq metres of green space, whereas the average state school student has access to about 32 sq metres of green space: a ratio of 10:1.

Eton students enjoy the largest area of land of all the schools in the country, with its schoolboys having access to 4,445 sq metres per pupil an area, 140 times larger than that available to the average state school student. Some of that land is also accessible to the public.

The private school campuses include tennis courts, golf courses, rowing lakes, swimming pools, equestrian centres, wilderness areas, and remote camping lodges.

In contrast, some state schools have little or no green space at all for their students.

With missing defendants, dodgy video links and crumbling walls, a typical day at Snaresbrook show why 68,125 cases are waiting to be heard in England and Wales

In one of Britain’s busiest courts, a judge is taking the rare step of apologising to a defendant. “I’m so sorry, people should not be waiting over two years to be tried,” he says, addressing the man directly from the bench. “You have my personal apology, please stay in contact with your lawyers.”

The court has just been told that October 2026 is the earliest possible date the case can be heard. “It’s awful,” the judge remarks after confirming the situation with officials. “Who says our system isn’t broken?”

Her mother was furious at having no control over the end of her life. Now the actor is channelling that anger into getting the law changed

It was during the process of my mother [actor Diana Rigg] dying of terminal lung cancer that her frustrations of having no agency became clear. My husband, Guy [Garvey], had recorded tapes of his father speaking before he died and it felt like the natural thing to do with Mama. She and Guy talked about life, love and her career. Then there were recordings about the right to die. At this stage she was in the hospital, when it was the end. By this point she was an angry woman.

When the grief of her death had subsided enough that I was able to listen to the recordings, I realised I had an urgent mission. I owed her this. To share her statements on assisted dying. Ma had seen buddies go slowly and had nursed my dad’s mum and had always said, “Will you pull the plug if it gets too bad? Put the pillow over my face?” When it came down to it, I had to say to her, “I’ll do everything in my power but I’ve got a three-year-old son. I can’t go to the clink because I’m suffocating my mother. I’ll do anything and everything. But not that.” Dignitas would have been an option but was not possible as it was Covid and a bureaucratic nightmare.

Apathy, economic insecurity and feeling ignored is driving the under-35s away from Labour and the Tories

Young people feel more economically insecure, ignored and apathetic than the average voter before the election, amid evidence that they could be fuelling the growth of smaller parties.

A strong rejection of the Conservative party among the youngest voters continues to be evident: the latest Opinium poll for the Observer has a 52-point Labour lead among the under-35s.

A range of scientific studies point to clear physical and mental benefits of supporting friends and family. And the deeper the engagement, the greater the feelgood factor

Like many people, I find that stress transforms me into a nasty combination of Oscar the Grouch and Scrooge McDuck. The more pressure I am under, the more irritable I feel – and the less generous I become. I partly blame our culture. I’ve read enough wellness advice to know that I need to prioritise my own needs over other people’s. And so, when I feel under pressure, I have often made it a habit to practise small indulgences aimed at restoring my mental equilibrium, while insulating myself from all but the most essential social commitments.

Having read the latest psychological research, I can’t help but wonder if this attitude only exacerbates my bad mood. A wealth of new studies has shown that being kind to others is often the most effective means of suppressing the physiological and psychological stress response. Whether we are giving our time to a charity, “paying it forward” in a coffee shop, or providing emotional succour to a friend in need, altruism can boost our wellbeing in ways that we simply do not experience from treating ourselves. Other-care, it seems, is often one of the best forms of self-care.

Kevin Spacey weeps over lost jobs, but victims of sexual harassment were once routinely cancelled

Yes, they did something wrong. But the punishment is out of proportion. They have apologised, they have promised to change. Isn’t it time we forgave some of the men brought down by #MeToo?

It’s an important question – one that anyone interested in justice should ask. Lately, the rate of asking has picked up pace. In an interview with Piers Morgan last week, Kevin Spacey sobbed at the treatment he had suffered, even as he conceded that his accusers – one or two of them – had been telling the truth.

Action has been taken in only a tiny percentage of internal misconduct claims against officers since review by peer Louise Casey

The Metropolitan police has been accused of failing to deal with the “toxic culture” inside its firearms unit after the number of internal misconduct investigations rose to its highest level since 2018.

A wide-ranging investigation by Baroness Louise Casey last year found that the Met was institutionally racist, homophobic and misogynistic. Casey singled out its Specialist Firearms Command unit – also known as MO19 – accusing it of having a “deeply troubling, toxic culture” where “normal rules do not seem to apply” and staff were “well-connected to senior officers in the Met”.

As many countries celebrate Father’s Day, four men share their love, fears and dreams for their children in Gaza, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Sudan

Danylo Khomutovsky is a driver and frontline medic with Hospitallers, a volunteer group in Ukraine. His wife, Lera*, and nine-year-old son, Sasha*, fled after the Russian invasion and are now in the Netherlands. They have been separated from Danylo ever since

Concern continues after local elections and George Galloway win that party’s position on Israel-Gaza war still eroding support

Labour is directing activists to campaign in seats with substantial Muslim populations, over fears that some voters have been alienated by the party’s stance on Gaza.

Its campaigning efforts are mostly being concentrated on Conservative and SNP seats in an attempt to secure a potentially record-breaking majority. However, there are 13 Labour-held seats where Muslims make up at least a fifth of the electorate which the party is telling its activists to target.

Increased reliance on private provision is pushing children hundreds of miles away from friends and family

The number of places in council-run children’s homes in England has fallen by a third since 2012 – at the same time as places in privately run profit-making children’s homes have soared, according to an Observer analysis of government data.

The dramatic fall in council-run children’s homes, and local authorities’ increasing reliance on privately run provision, have helped drive a rise in children being housed hundreds of miles from their families, with private provision clustering in cheaper parts of the country.

For 14 years, the Conservative government has shown no interest in the lives of young people in difficulty

James Munby’s heartfelt plea for suitable accommodation for children at serious risk to themselves or others (“Judges are sick of locking up children who just need help”), alongside the report that the NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) are turning away children at risk of suicide (“Suicide-risk children refused places on NHS England waiting lists as services overwhelmed”), highlights once again that, since 2010, the Conservative government has displayed a total lack of interest in the needs of children who are experiencing difficulty.

Sure Start scrapped, youth services nonexistent, residential care in the hands of profit-seekers, levels of child mental ill health way beyond CAMHS’ ability to cope, special educational needs unmet, funding to voluntary organisations drastically cut, child poverty increased, and the recommendations of the government’s own review of children’s social care ignored. The list goes on, while the general wellbeing of the UK’s children continues to rank below the European average.

A-listers queued up to add showbiz pizzaz before elections. Today, it’s seen as more effective for a member of the public speak out

David Tennant, Colin Firth, Jim Davidson and the late Kenny Everett all signed up to officially support a political party during past British general election campaigns, giving a touch of showbiz pizazz to the daily round of rainy hustings and churlish TV debates. After Tony Blair’s victory in 1997, the pavement in Downing Street was infamously lined with VIPs, from a Gallagher brother to a Mitchell brother (EastEnders’ Ross Kemp), all calling at his celebratory Cool Britannia event.

But the era of the high-profile celebrity political endorsement appears to be behind us as individual social media declarations, together with the complexities that surround divisive issues such as gender politics, climate change and the Middle East conflict, make these relationships more difficult to cement.

In a community blighted by the crack and heroin trade, few believe that politicians can help

‘If you don’t stab them, they’ll stab you.” It is hard to believe anyone would think like that, let alone say it on the BBC News at Ten. But here we were, my camera crew, producer and I, reporting on the streets of Middlesbrough, interviewing local teenagers. What happened next was genuinely disturbing.

One teenager, a self-confessed street level drug dealer, pulled out a large knife, calmly and confidently. “You’ve got to carry,” he said, “it’s brutal round here.” I was in North Ormesby, one of the town’s most deprived areas and, as the knife moved in his hand, his three friends laughed. One asked if I wanted to see an “even bigger thing”. All of them agreed they were prepared to stab other dealers. They said they were 18, all wore balaclavas, and I had no reason to doubt any of them.

Lingchi, or “death by a thousand cuts”, was a particularly brutal form of execution practised in Asia in ancient times: the condemned person was tied to a post and body parts were slowly sliced off one by one. The Indian-born photographer Sujata Setia uses this barbaric practice in her series A Thousand Cuts as a potent metaphor for a different kind of brutality – domestic abuse. In collaboration with the charity Shewise, Setia spent two years photographing survivors of abuse among the UK’s south Asian community. Using saanjhi, the Indian art of paper-cutting, she makes vivid red cuts in her portraits to express her subjects’ anguish: “I wanted to show how the scars are not only external but internal,” she says. Having grown up witnessing domestic violence, Setia initially resisted turning the camera on herself. “But there came a point where I realised I had to own my own scars.” Taking her own portrait and placing it alongside the others in the series has been “absolutely the most healing process,” she says.

• Setia is the winner of the creative category of the Sony world photography awards 2024, professional competition. The 2024 awards book is available to buy at worldphoto.org. In the UK, the national domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247, or visit womensaid.org.uk

Seeing his brother’s distressing deterioration has made the broadcaster even more certain that legal reform is needed

My brother was a sculptor. A vibrant, formidable force. Physically strong and intellectually clear-minded, with a wonderful capacity to express his love of art. The autumn before he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, my wife noticed he looked a bit frail. He had trouble swallowing his food. He had just completed a sculpture of Coleridge for a churchyard in Devon and was otherwise fit and well. But then he fell over, on to a child while in London. Nick had been mortified, so he visited the GP. In February 2023 I received the call: “Joth, I’ve got some bad news.”

The diagnosis came brutally. It horrified Nick to adjust to a life in which he would not be able to use his hands or voice. “I’m not going to allow myself to be a trussed-up chicken carcass,” he said. “I’m going to bring an end to it before that.”

Wild Cat Island had always held a special place in the imagination of our son, so after his funeral we chose to try and send him on one last journey

Famously, Windermere is the setting of the children’s adventure story Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome, and it’s also one of our son Torin’s favourite books. It appealed to his own love of adventure, mischief and all things piratical. Along with his little sister, Lowri, we embarked upon many canoe adventures together on the River Dart in the summer months, spotting wildlife and playing pirates with other boats. Torin – which means chief – was always ship’s captain, of course, because the children from the story often tussled for the position. Torin also loved practical jokes. His favourite was the whoopee cushion, normally hidden very indiscreetly on a seat where you would be ordered to sit down with great anticipation and stifled giggling.

Torin was born with a rare form of life-limiting, mitochondrial disease. After many lengthy admissions to Bristol Children’s hospital over several years, he developed some close relationships with its staff. One of the closest was with Katie, a brilliant play therapist who, when Torin was 11, asked me if she could apply to a charity that could send a family like ours on an all-expenses-paid trip of a lifetime together. She said: “Ask him where he would go if he could go anywhere in the world.”

In an interview, the Lib Dem leader says even Labour voters want party to win seats so they can hold Starmer to account

The Lib Dems will push a Labour ­government to adopt more radical policies on tax, welfare and bringing Britain closer to the EU, Ed Davey has said, amid growing expectations that his party is on course for a far bigger role in the next parliament.

In an interview with the Observer, the Lib Dem leader said that his ­party’s focus remained squarely on ousting Tory MPs via a tactical ­voting drive that he claimed could be the most successful ever seen.

The term for England footballers’ wives and girlfriends first exploded in 2006 in Germany. The new generation watching the Euros are turning the old stereotypes on their heads

When England take to the pitch for their first game on Sunday night in Germany, eyes will be trained not just on the players but on the team sitting in the stands, cheering on the squad – the wives and girlfriends of the players, the so-called Wags.

The acronym Wags first appeared in the Sunday Telegraph in 2002 – apparently coined by the staff of a Dubai hotel where the players’ wives and girlfriends stayed. Still a relatively new phenomenon, it exploded like a glitterbomb on to the resort of Baden-Baden, where the England squad were based during the World Cup in Germany in 2006.

The comedy producer, 51, reflects on early ambitions to be a stockbroker, dodging racism by being a wheelchair user, and being noisy enough to get invited to the party

I was born in Cairo and moved to Northern Ireland when I was two for my parents’ work – they’re both doctors. I’d open my mouth and this really manic Northern Irish accent would come out, which was even more incongruous for a little brown boy in a wheelchair. When my family moved to England, my nickname at school was IRA.

I was really interested in becoming a stockbroker. I’m a product of the 80s, with the stock market booms and red striped shirts. I thought: they’re just sitting down, shouting into a telephone. I could do that! That’s what I trained to do, but when I got there, I wasn’t very good at it. I got fired or resigned – depending on who you ask.

I can’t tell you that I grew up wanting to work in comedy. It’s something that occurred to me quite late. I got my midlife crisis out of the way when I was 23, a realisation that I was at the bottom of a ladder I didn’t want to climb. There’s something melancholy about trading in the City. As the new guy, I’d sit seven down from the man who’d been there 25 years. I thought: I don’t want to be him.

If you’re a wheelchair user, it’s all you know. Growing up, you start to realise that most people are not wheelchair users and you are a significant minority. It’s unwelcome learning that the world has not been built to help you.

I can’t remember experiencing racism. It’s the second most obvious thing about me. Had I not been in a wheelchair, my heritage might have turned up more. If you looked at me as a child or even now, the first thing you might say is: “That man is a wheelchair user.” Only then would you add: “He is Egyptian.”

I don’t subscribe to the narrative that it’s hard to make comedy in the current climate. Only a small percentage of issues are hot-button topics: gender, the trans debate. Do those things occupy my thinking when I’m putting together a new sitcom? Not at all. If you want to go straight into the fire and talk about those things, good luck to you. But that’s not where 99% of comedy sits.

I’ve always been worried about being invisible. It’s GCSE psychology to say the guy in the wheelchair wants to make sure he’s noisy enough that people take notice. Working in comedy is one way of making sure you’re invited to the party.

I find it very hard to watch comedy. I’m either hugely envious or writing script notes in my head. I want to watch television for escapism. The problem is, it’s what I do for a living.

I cry relatively easily. I get quite melancholic and nostalgic about the passing of years. It can bring me to tears quickly.

I had some interior designers help me do my flat. They said, “You should include something to do with The Office.” I thought that would be showy, so instead they came up with this ugly picture of a canal in Slough that has nothing to do with the show I produced. It’s been on the wall for years.

Is there a God? Well, my family thinks so, so hopefully they’re not reading this. If there is, I’ve got a few notes for him.

Things You Should Have Done is available to catch up on BBC iPlayer

We should be able to die at home, and before we lose our minds to dementia, the writer argues

When the distinguished Belgian writer Hugo Claus was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, he emailed his friends to say that when the disease had advanced to the point that he would be soon unable to make decisions, he would end his life. Accordingly, in March 2008, he died at a legal Belgian facility. The Catholic church naturally condemned his action. Whereas the former prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, not always a man for the striking phrase, said that the onset of Alzheimer’s must have been “an inevitable and unbearable torture”, and went on: “I can live with the fact that he decided thus, because he left us as a great glowing star, right on time, just before he collapsed into a stellar black hole.” Claus’s actions struck me, and still do, as rational, exemplary, and in a quiet way, heroic.

The religious generally argue that God has given us life, and so it is not ours to dispose of as and when we see fit. The non-religious, who guess that we have arrived by some piece of cosmic chance, are more inclined to think that as autonomous beings, it is our right and duty to live according to our own lights and, in extreme circumstances, to control the manner of our own death. With increasing longevity, plus medical advances that keep us alive well beyond the point where in previous centuries we would have died, complex problems arise for individuals, doctors and society at large.

Some parents put off attending parties while others say wishlists offer chance to cut waste with charity shop finds

When Lizzie, a mother of one from Oxford, was invited to the third birthday party of a child from her antenatal group, it wasn’t the date or the time that stopped her attending.

In the corner of the bubble-themed invitation, there was a link to a digital gift registry, where presents ranged from Brio wooden toys and an £89.99 Yoto music player to a play kitchen. There was a list of favourite brands, including the sustainable clothing designer Mini Rodini, and the Arket label.

Remembering the deaths of her first husband and brother, the broadcaster calls for urgent change

Many people have a vision that they’re going to die a good death because they’ve seen it on telly. A patient lies in bed, with their nearest and dearest. Holding hands. Mozart playing, before they drift into a deep sleep.

Death, for most, is not like that at all. My first husband had a horrible death. He didn’t want to die because he thought he should live for my sake and the children. But he had emphysema. Sometimes he would not be able to breathe and doctors would have to get him on a trolley to get to the right equipment. It was incredibly upsetting. We’d run down the corridor and he’d try to grab my hand. Once he put my thumb in his mouth and sucked it like a child with a dummy. Doctors shoved me out of the way and took him to a defibrillator. The next day I went back to the hospital and he was fine. I thought, how many times will we have to go through this?

Thanks to our reader-funded model, we can turn down money from a sector that leads some users to despair

• Support the Guardian’s bold, independent reporting today

When I began reporting on the gambling sector in 2015, I didn’t have any preconceptions about the industry. After all, it rarely seemed to make front-page news.

One reason for this, I would later learn, is that problem gambling and addiction often fly under the radar, not just at a societal level but even within close-knit families.

Parents encouraged to help Bum Deal track where facilities are available in push for change in law

Dads and male caregivers are being given a bum deal in toilets throughout the UK, according to a campaign that is pushing for a change in the law.

The Bum Deal campaign, launched by the UK feminist organisation Love & Power and backed by Oxfam, the British Toilet Association (BTA) and parents, hopes to inspire a grassroots movement that will make baby changing facilities available to all parents and caregivers.

Some believe naming convicted children acts as deterrent, while others say it could glorify horrific acts

The guilty verdicts in the trial of two 12-year-olds for killing Shawn Seesahai in Wolverhampton, puts them among the UK’s youngest convicted murderers, and leaves the judge with key decisions to make.

Before deciding the minimum sentence to impose on the boys, Mrs Justice Tipples will have to decide whether they should be named.

A cancer diagnosis has reinforced the presenter’s belief that the time for change has come

Twenty years ago there were three deaths in my family. We lost my mother, my husband and our rescue dog in a few short months. Looking back, now that I have had a diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer and am having to face the reality of my own mortality, the most peaceful, pain-free and easiest death was our dog’s, who was gently put down surrounded by his loving family. I envy him. The current state of our criminal law means that merciful end is denied me. I know we love our dogs in this country, but why, at the very end of our lives, do we treat pets so much better than we treat people?

I am told assisted dying inspires more letters to newspapers than any other issue. A recent Westminster Hall debate was attended by so many MPs that they had to find extra chairs. The speeches were passionate and moving. Many described witnessing the painful death of someone close to them. But it was only a debate, no possibility of a vote at the end, or any change in the law. It resulted from a petition I helped to spearhead, along with the campaigning charity Dignity in Dying. For their own sake, and for the sake of those they love, 200,000 signatories called for a change in the law to legalise assisted dying in carefully regulated circumstances, for terminally ill people with six months or less to live. I believe the time for that change has come.

The TV presenter who died this month was full of ideas for single actions that could benefit body and mind

Dr Michael Mosley, the popular TV presenter, podcaster and columnist who died this month, was best known for surprisingly straightforward tips to improve your health and wellbeing.

As well as producing documentaries and regularly appearing on television, he presented more than 100 episodes of Just One Thing, a BBC Radio 4 series where each episode explored a single action you could take to improve your health.

Stephen Massey has taken on role at GenesisCare, which reports increased demand ‘as a result of NHS backlogs’

The Conservative party’s chief executive has taken on a senior role at a private cancer care firm that said in its annual report it had benefited from soaring NHS waiting times.

Stephen Massey was appointed CEO of the party in November 2022, months after he donated £25,000 of his personal wealth to support Rishi Sunak’s first, and unsuccessful, bid to become Tory leader.

Shamin Vogel sets out the stark reality for today’s young women who face ridiculous societal expectations and high living and childcare costs. Plus letters from Rachel Fowler and Claire Elizabeth Brown

I read Emma Beddington’s column with delight (Young women are telling each other to ‘date rich’. How terrifyingly retro, 9 June). I was raised to think that I can achieve whatever I want, always with the reminder that generations of women before me fought for equality. Moving to London for my studies, I became acquainted with the concept of women studying just to find a rich husband and to be a housewife and mother. This idea was utterly foreign, even incomprehensible, to the career‑oriented 19-year-old me.

A decade later, I am surrounded by female friends who now regret not having found a rich husband – who are faced with rising living expenses, a ticking body clock, ridiculous housing prices, seemingly out‑of‑reach childcare and fertility costs, and a never-ending parade of hopeful online dating matches. Yes, life is hard working as a man, but for women there are some more items on the list: you need to push for a good career, look fabulous, find a nice husband, have kids, be part of Forbes’ 30 under 30, be an executive but not forget to have a clean white kitchen and make kids’ birthday cakes.

From Labour’s free school breakfast clubs to the Lib Dems’ focus on social care, what do those who work in these areas think of what’s promised?

• UK general election live – latest updates

Labour launched its election manifesto on Thursday, focusing on economic growth and the offer of a fresh start after 14 years of Conservative rule. Here, six people who work in education, health and social care share their views on the pledges made by the UK’s political parties.